@talboger.bsky.social’s poster-coaster experience lands in Baltimore this afternoon! Come see him present his work at the @socphilpsych.bsky.social at this evening’s poster session, then grab a coaster as a souvenir. Available while supplies last!

Do we perceive animacy itself, beyond its lower-level visual correlates? In @elife.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and I leverage “visual anagrams” — images whose interpretations change with orientation — to suggest the answer is: yes! elifesciences.org/reviewed-pre...

When you look at a complex scene, you perceive various ensembles — sets of items of various sizes, numbers, etc. Are some more salient than others? In a new paper (w/ samiyousif.bsky.social), we provide an answer to this question! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Excited to have been wrong about this! A few years ago, Tal told me he was working on intuitions about complexity. I knee-jerkily said, “but surely that’s not a natural kind! Why think that people have intuitions about complexity across domains?” Good thing this is the last time I’ll ever be wrong!

Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...

at last, I have assembled all 4 of the Boger Coasters. The power of exactly matched low-level features is MINE

It's #VSS2026! SO excited about the projects we've brought with us this year, and of course #phiVis to close things out. Come say hi, and don't forget to grab your lab 'merch' 👀 perception.jhu.edu/vss/

it sounds dumb but i honestly love my tal boger coaster and i'd make tal's poster a priority to ensure i got one if i were at VSS lol

no one tells you the hardest part of packing for VSS is the lab merch (come get one at my poster monday morning!)

fresh batch of lab merch, just in time for VSS!

@noamchompers.bsky.social is right that we are right about him being right about perceived animacy. (more on this project coming soon!)

Conundrum of the day: The references section for your accepted-in-principle manuscript has an obvious typo in it ('absract' should clearly be 'abstract'). But no, the typo is in the original paper title! WHAT DO YOU DO

Is core knowledge actually core *perception*? In a forthcoming piece in BBS, @shariliu.bsky.social, Lisa Feigenson, & I comment on @daweibai.bsky.social et al.’s target article. osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/vnbep

What does it mean for culture to “shape” cognition? In our new TiCS paper, @benjaminpitt.bsky.social & I offer a typology of four possible effects: culture can Privilege one cognitive process over others, Prune out disfavored ones, Produce new ones, or have no effect. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

🥁Now announcing the winner of the 2026 Stanton Prize: Congratulations, Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ This honor will be celebrated at the upcoming meeting of the SPP

A few years ago, my favorite website (@puddingviz.bsky.social) put out this great piece analyzing a study of how randomizing ability changes with age. It includes demos where readers produce sequences of random coin flips, dice rolls, and locations in a 3x3 grid. pudding.cool/2022/04/rand...

I am very excited to announce that over the holidays, my first ever paper (w/ @samiyousif.bsky.social) was published in Cognitive Science! Here, we describe a new illusion of *number*: The Crowd Size Illusion! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Well this is exciting! The Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University (@jhu.edu) invites applications for a full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty member in Cognitive Psychology, in any area and at any rank! Application + more info: apply.interfolio.com/178146

Congratulations (and thank you) to @talboger.bsky.social, who lectured in front of nearly 500 @jhu.edu undergraduates today on the psychology of music! They didn’t see it coming, and then they loved it :)

can't believe the IRB approved this part — hope the children are ok!

What a lovely 'spotlight' of @talboger.bsky.social's work on style perception! Written by @aennebrielmann.bsky.social in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social. See Aenne's paper below, as well as Tal's original work here: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

When a butterfly becomes a bear, perception takes center stage. Research from @talboger.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social and the Perception & Mind Lab.

Out today! www.cell.com/current-biol...

important question for dev people: when reporting demographics for a paper involving both kids and adults, we want some consistency in how we report that information. so do you call the kids "men" and "women", or do you call the adults "boys" and “girls"?

sami is such a creative, thoughtful, and fun mentor. anyone who gets to work with him is so lucky!

Visual adaptation is viewed as a test of whether a feature is represented by the visual system. In a new paper, Sam Clarke and I push the limits of this test. We show spatially selective, putatively "visual" adaptation to a clearly non-visual dimension: Value! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

It's true: This is the first project from our lab that has a "Merch" page! Get yours @ www.perceptionresearch.org/anagrams/mer...

On the left is a rabbit. On the right is an elephant. But guess what: They’re the *same image*, rotated 90°! In @currentbiology.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show how these images—known as “visual anagrams”—can help solve a longstanding problem in cognitive science. bit.ly/45BVnCZ

Out today! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Lab-mate got my ass on the lab when2meet

Amazing new work from @gabrielwaterhouse.bsky.social and @samiyousif.bsky.social! I'm convinced the crowd size illusion is real, but the rooms full of people watching Gabe give awesome talks at @socphilpsych.bsky.social and @vssmtg.bsky.social were no illusion!

@sallyberson.bsky.social in action at @socphilpsych.bsky.social! #SPP2025

Susan Carey sitting in the front row of a grad student talk (by @talboger.bsky.social) and going back and forth during Q&A is what makes the @socphilpsych.bsky.social so special! Loved this interaction 🤗

Now officially out! psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... (Free version here: talboger.github.io/files/Boger_...)

It's @vssmtg.bsky.social! So excited to share this year's projects from the lab, including brand new research directions and some deep dives on foundational issues. More info @ perception.jhu.edu/vss/. See you on the 🏖! #VSS2025

Looking at Van Gogh’s Starry Night, we see not only its content (a French village beneath a night sky) but also its *style*. How does that work? How do we see style? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I take an experimental approach to style perception! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Sam Clarke and I have been writing a lot about adaptation -- what it is, what it isn't, what it reveals about perception. We've just released a preprint that pushes the boundaries of adaptation even further. We document spatially selective adaptation to arbitrary *value*. philpapers.org/rec/CLACWS

Danny wolf transferred from Yale to Michigan, what is he, writing a friggin metaethics dissertation, folks?

I'm really, really excited about our recent paper on children's understanding of topological spatial relations (w/ Lily Goldstein and Liz Brannon). I've linked the paper here, but I'll summarize the thread below. direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Watch this video. Do you remember seeing a ball in the second half of the video? Up to 37% of our participants reported seeing a ball, even though it wasn’t there. Why? In a new paper in press @ Cognition, Brent Strickland and I ask what causes event completion. osf.io/preprints/ps...

Suppose you generated a sequence of 100 random numbers. Then one year later, you did it again. Do you think we could predict one sequence from the other? It turns out, we can! Now in press @ JEP:G with @samiyousif.bsky.social @actlab.bsky.social @robbrutledge.bsky.social; osf.io/preprints/ps...

Which is more complex: A bicycle or a car? Object complexity comes in many different kinds — such as visual, mechanistic, and more. How are these kinds related? Now out @ JEP:G, Frank Keil and I argue that mechanistic complexity is fundamental. psycnet.apa.org/record/2025-...